Microclimate modulation: An overlooked mechanism influencing the impact of plant diversity on ecosystem functioning

作者：Rémy Beugnon, Nolwenn Le Guyader, Alexandru Milcu, Jonathan Lenoir, Jérémy Puissant, Xavier Morin, Stephan Hättenschwiler · 发表于：Global Change Biology · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1111/gcb.17214 · 被引用次数：57 · 研究领域：Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies、Species Distribution and Climate Change、Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics

Changes in climate and biodiversity are widely recognized as primary global change drivers of ecosystem structure and functioning, also affecting ecosystem services provided to human populations. Increasing plant diversity not only enhances ecosystem functioning and stability but also mitigates climate change effects and buffers extreme weather conditions, yet the underlying mechanisms remain largely unclear. Recent studies have shown that plant diversity can mitigate climate change (e.g. reduce temperature fluctuations or drought through microclimatic effects) in different compartments of the focal ecosystem, which as such may contribute to the effect of plant diversity on ecosystem properties and functioning. However, these potential plant diversity-induced microclimate effects are not sufficiently understood. Here, we explored the consequences of climate modulation through microclimate modification by plant diversity for ecosystem functioning as a potential mechanism contributing to the widely documented biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) relationships, using a combination of theoretical and simulation approaches. We focused on a diverse set of response variables at various levels of integration ranging from ecosystem-level carbon exchange to soil enzyme activity, including population dynamics and the activity of specific organisms. Here, we demonstrated that a vegetation layer composed of many plant species has the potential to influence ecosystem functioning and st...